Not that it made much difference at Tea Haven. The sugar content in our samples was high enough to mask the taste of the plastic cups. Maybe even high enough to dissolve them, given enough time.
The Tea Haven at the Shoppes at Fairview Court was not a bad place to work. Not really. It was a significant upgrade over my last job—spinning the daily special sign at one of those take-it-and-bake-it pizza places—and it would look good on my resume. That way, when I graduated, I could work at an artisanal tea store, instead of one that added the latest superfood extract to whatever dismal fannings the corporate tea blenders could find at the steepest discount.
My dream job was Rose City Teas, this place in the Northwest District that did small-batch, hand-selected teas. There were no artificial flavorings in Rose City’s tea. But you had to be eighteen to work there.
I was stuffing the cups into their spring-loaded dispenser when Trent Bolger’s hyena laugh rang through the open doorway.
I was completely exposed. The entire front of Tea Haven was composed of giant windows, which, though tinted to reduce sun exposure, still offered a full and enticing view of the wares (and employees) inside.
I silently wished for the sun to bounce off the window,blinding Trent and cloaking me from what was sure to be an unpleasant encounter. Or, at the very least, for Trent to keep on walking and not recognize me in my work uniform of black shirt and bright blue apron.
It did not work. Trent Bolger rounded the corner and instantly got a sensor lock on me.
He grabbed the doorframe and swung himself into the store, followed by one of his Soulless Minions of Orthodoxy, Chip Cusumano.
“Hey! D’s Nuts!”
Trent Bolger never called me Darius. Not if there was a suggestive nickname he could use instead.
Mom always said she named me after Darius the Great, but I think she and Dad were setting themselves up for disappointment, naming me after a historical figure like that. I was many things—D-Hole, D-Wad, D’s Nuts—but I was definitely not great.
If anything, I was a great target for Trent Bolger and his Soulless Minions of Orthodoxy. When your name begins withD,the sexual innuendos practically write themselves.
At least Trent was predictable.
Trent Bolger was not technically a bully. Chapel Hill High School—where Trent, Chip, and I were sophomores—had a Zero Tolerance Policy toward bullying.
It also had Zero Tolerance Policies toward fighting, plagiarism, drugs, and alcohol.
And if everyone at Chapel Hill High School tolerated Trent’s behavior, that meant he wasn’t a bully.
Right?
Trent and I had known each other since kindergarten. We were friends back then, in the way that everyone is friends in kindergarten, before sociopolitical alliances begin to cement, and then, by the time third grade rolls around, you find yourself spending every game of Heads Down, Thumbs Up with your head down and your thumb up, completely ignored by your entire class until you begin to wonder if you’ve turned invisible.
Trent Bolger was only a Level Two Athlete (Level Three at best). He played something-back on the Chapel Hill High School junior varsity football team (Go Chargers). And he was not particularly good-looking, either. Trent was almost a head shorter than me, with close-cropped black hair, blocky black glasses, and a nose that turned up sharply at the end.
Trent Bolger had the largest nostrils of anyone I had ever seen.
Nonetheless, Trent was disproportionately popular among Chapel Hill High School’s sophomore class.
Chip Cusumano was taller, better-looking, and cooler. His hair was long and swoopy on top, with the sides shaved. He had the elegant sort of curved nose you saw in statues and paintings, and his nostrils were perfectly proportioned.
He was also nicer than Trent (to most people if not to me), which of course meant he was far less popular.
Also, his real name was Cyprian, which was an even more unusual name than Darius.
Trent Bolger shared his last name with Fredegar “Fatty” Bolger, a Hobbit fromThe Lord of the Rings. He’s the one thatstays home in the Shire while Frodo and company go on their adventure.
Fatty Bolger is pretty much the most boring Hobbit ever.
I never called Trent “Fatty” to his face.
It was a Level Five Disaster.
I had avoided letting anyone at Chapel Hill High School know where I worked, specifically to keep that knowledge from falling into the hands of Trent and the Soulless Minions of Orthodoxy.
Chip Cusumano nodded at me from the doorway and began to examine our line of brightly colored steeper mugs. But Trent Bolger headed straight for my station. He was wearing gray swishy shorts and his Chapel Hill High School Wrestling Team sweatshirt.
